Nick Hurd: I thank my hon. Friend for his constructive intervention. It is helpful for us to understand that this is a real issue in Bromley.
	The Minister fully understands the significance of clause 4, and the opportunity that it provides to place every public sector budget under scrutiny with a much greater degree of transparency than exists today. The question is: how will the public react? They might shrug with a great gesture of collective indifference, but we believe that they will not. Once the spotlight has been shone into every nook and cranny of public expenditure, great curiosity will be aroused and elected representatives will be encouraged to campaign for something different. This will really stir things up.
	The importance of new clause 6—and old clause 5—is that it has to follow on because it enables a response. We will give people the information and show them the money. This provision provides a mechanism that will allow them to respond and to argue for the reallocation of resources in the light of the information that they have received.

Nick Hurd: I could not agree with the hon. Gentleman more. I am looking at the measures through the prism of my own constituency, as every Member will. We all know that money cannot buy you love, but it can save a post office, it can keep Northwood police station open for longer hours, it can hire more youth workers to work with kids and keep them off Joel street on a Friday night, and it can go towards a new youth centre. What we want, and what I believe the Minister wants, is for local communities to engage and to feel that they can influence these decisions.
	I am sure that every Member is as concerned as I am about the growing sense of drift and distance from the political process. People really do not feel that it is worth getting involved. The driving force behind the Bill is that we want to send a powerful signal that it is worth getting involved because there is a decent chance of changing things. We do not underestimate the difficulties involved, but if we can create a mechanism that will allow local communities to influence the way in which taxpayers' money is spent in their area, we hope—it might be a naive hope—that it will transform the level of civic engagement.

Nick Hurd: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention, which I wholly endorse. The Bill is about enabling people; part of its driving force is to encourage greater participation so the least we can do is present the measure coherently and intelligently. Officials sometimes say that does not matter as long as we get the necessary powers. I do not agree. A Bill needs to tell a clear story about what it is trying to achieve and how it intends to do it. We should be clear.
	My second point is about substance. If we are to accept—as a compromise—that the new freedom of local authorities should be restricted to arguing for reallocation of functions, we need comfort that what we believe is implicit in the Government's position is made explicit in the Bill: if functions are transferred, money should follow. It makes no sense to transfer functions without resources. I believe that is implicit in the Government's proposals but we want it made explicit. If functions and money are transferred, local authorities should have discretion over policy as long as they have regard to the objectives of their locally agreed community strategies—or sustainable community strategies, as we understand they are to be called. That is important for the reasons given by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) on 23 May. We do not want it to be necessary for remit to follow function, so that, for example, if a local authority takes over the functions of a Business Link it will not necessarily have to take over the statutory remit of that body. We want local authorities to be free to innovate, as long as they can be seen to be working towards achieving a locally agreed target under the local authority agreement process.
	We want local authorities to have that right not least because it will incentivise greater co-operation. In such circumstances, Business Link would have to work harder to go with the grain of what the community wants, because otherwise it would risk losing resources or function. Fundamentally, such a right gives us a mechanism to shake up the system—to correct failure and encourage innovation when things are getting jaded and complacent. I am sure the Minister agrees, because he is not complacent. I read the Committee proceedings of 23 May carefully and when the Minister was questioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset about remit following function, he said:
	"That is not my intention."——[ Official Report, Sustainable Communities Public Bill Committee, 23 May 2007; c. 147.]
	He then enthusiastically gave us examples of best practice and innovation, such as the south Devon youth club that had left a big impression on him when he visited it. When we stated that we wanted a presumption that local authorities should be able to get the Secretary of State's approval to take over spending, he said, "I agree". I am not trying to embarrass him by reminding him of his comments—as an experienced Minister he is beyond that; I am simply trying to explain that the new clause has been tabled in good faith.

Nick Hurd: I thank the Minister. We are all sensitive to the fact that he and his officials are trying to wrestle with the difficulty of reconciling and marrying the little fish that is the Bill with the whale of legislative reform that he is trying to ride through the waters of local government. There is an honest attempt at integration and I do not underestimate the difficulties of achieving it, not least in terms of timing. I stress, however, that we tabled the clause in good faith because we thought it reflected the Minister's intentions and we wanted to make them explicit.
	When the Minister responds, will he recognise that we need a mechanism to follow clause 4? Is he prepared to put on record the Government's acceptance that resources must follow transfer of functions? Did we understand him correctly in Committee when he appeared to agree that remit should not necessarily follow function—that local authorities should have discretion over policy when function is transferred as long as it is geared towards locally agreed targets? If so, will he explain why he appears to oppose the new clause?
	I hope the Minister accepts that our discussions have been open, but if we cannot reach agreement, my instinct, shared by co-sponsors of the Bill, is not to push for a vote on the new clause. There is strong support for the Bill inside and outside the House, as the Minister knows, and a desire to see us agree about it, but there will be disappointment if there is a feeling out there that the Government are diluting the measure. I shall listen carefully to the Minister's contribution and hope that we will hear reassurance that what we want made explicit is implicit in the Government's intentions and that there is an appropriate mechanism, or a willingness to find reconciliation and common ground. I have to tell him that we think there is unfinished business; we want to give people real power to influence the spending of taxpayers' money in their communities and, if need be, we shall continue the argument in the other place.

David Drew: I shall move speedily on.
	This is an important new clause and it is clear that it will not be pressed to a vote. The spirit behind it is well intended and I hope that the Minister will clearly spell out how the Government intend to listen to what has been said in Committee and today. There must be a mechanism, because functionality without the resources to back it up involves a somewhat meaningless gesture. The Government have made it clear that the Bill must be been seen in parallel with the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, which I hope will be enacted shortly. There is talk about how the mechanism will work in the local area agreements, which I hope we will now see as local area and spending agreements, because the issue is all about money and how it will make a difference. Will the Minister therefore spell out how the mechanism will operate in practice?
	We have compromised and we have been willing to compromise. This Bill has been one of compromise and consensus and everyone says that that is a terribly bad thing because it means that we get bad legislation that is all mushy and means warm words to everyone. However, I think that we will come out with a good Bill and this issue is at its kernel. There is healthy disagreement on a philosophical point about the degree to which we can genuinely devolve resource allocation to a local level and persuade Government that what local areas want to do is appropriate and right. If that cannot be done under this Bill, it would be good to know how it can be made to happen; otherwise, what we will have is not a poisoned chalice, but there will be a lost opportunity for local areas. When they look to carry out their functions in all sorts of promising ways, the money will not be there.
	I hope that the Minister is listening to what we are saying. We are trying to work through some difficult points, but doing so on the basis of unanimity. I hope we will genuinely learn how the mechanism can be made to operate. Local communities must understand that and, as the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) explained, the point must be made explicit; otherwise local communities may use the mechanism in a way that some of us do not want them to. I hope that the Minister has heard that point, and he should have heard it because it was made on several occasions in Committee. I know that there is a way forward and I hope that he will explain what it is.
	I make no apology for seeking a compromise even if we reach a compromise on a compromise, given that we will not press the new clause to a vote. The spirit of what we have said is important, so I shall now sit down and listen to what the Minister has to say.

Phil Woolas: Let me try to reassure the hon. Lady about what she has described as the narrative, and about the consequential actions. I strongly agree with her point about raised expectations, but may I put another point into the pot? She says that she is scared of mushy compromise, and we are all scared of that. However, she is also a proponent of the view that what happens in Cornwall is different from what happens in, say, West Dorset. I do not want mushy compromise to take away the important point the Bill's promoter made: if one is a localist, one accepts differences.

Oliver Letwin: The hon. Lady asks a serious and pertinent question that has been at the centre of much of our discussion as the Bill has progressed. She can be reassured—this is not a bone of contention between the Government and the rest of us—by the fact that under any version of the Bill, a local authority will be able to propose that it should spend money differently, but will not have the right to determine that it should do so. The Secretary of State of the Government of the day will be able to consider the proposal. If that Secretary of State thinks that the proposal is zany and that local people should not be able to elect a government that would do such a thing, he or she will be able to say no and that will be the end of the matter. The hon. Lady can relax, because there is no potential for monkeys to distribute peanuts instead of jobs.
	However, let us say that we are not talking about a lunatic proposing nonsense, but about a genuine disagreement of view between the centre, whoever is in government, and local government, no matter what its political composition may be, about how an objective is best met. Let us take the example of employment that hon. Lady mentioned. In our version of the Bill, the local view would generally prevail. However, the Secretary of State could still battle it out and say no, if they were really determined to do so.
	Let me give the hon. Lady an example of where such a process would be useful, not dangerous. In Kent, because of the local area agreement, one of the most productive things that have happened is in the field of employment. Through agreement in the local area agreement framework, the county council has taken the lead in changing some of the ways in which are people got into jobs, so that people have more sustainable jobs for longer, which has saved the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury benefit and tax credit expenditure. Under the local area agreement, that can be recycled into yet more efforts to help more people into sustainable jobs. That is clearly a virtuous circle on which she and I would agree.

Oliver Letwin: That is absolutely right, and it is one of the reasons why that virtuous circle was set in motion in Kent. That is a point of agreement between us. However, as the Minister would accept and as I certainly accept, the consequence of that is that there will be times and places in which the Government of the day, whoever they may be, think that the obvious way to achieve an objective is x, and the people who have been elected locally and are answerable to the local electors think that the way to achieve it is y. We are asking Governments to take the risk, although they will be able to veto the decision if they must, of leaving local people, generally speaking, to make that decision for themselves. The system will not always be perfect and it will not always produce perfect results. It will be a political risk for the locals who take that step and a risk for Government, as they will be letting go of some of their powers, but the point of the Bill is precisely to achieve that.
	If the hon. Member for Stourbridge is asking whether there are safeguards, the answer is yes. If she is asking whether those safeguards will always ensure that the policy machine of the Government of the day determines the outcome, the answer is no. The effect would be that, very often, locals would get a say in how the system was operated, although the Government of the day might or might not thoroughly approve of that.

Oliver Letwin: It is interesting that, although we are having a debate that is deeply relevant to new clause 6—I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for letting us have it—it also relates to the centrepiece of the Bill, because the question that the hon. Lady asked is the main question raised by the Bill. What happens if things go wrong? The responsibility would be with the local authority that had caused things to go wrong and it would answer to its electorate. If she is saying, "Oh dear. The Government may allow some public money to be given, via tax, to the local authority, which may spend it in ways that fail and it may then be accountable to its population. Oh dear, dear," I would say the following to her. First—I do not say this in a partisan spirit—things frequently go wrong for Governments of all hues. I will not trouble her with the many things that have gone wrong in the past 10 years, and I hope that she will not trouble me with the things that went wrong in the years before that. Governments of all hues get things wrong, as do local authorities. Actually, Governments get things wrong on a bigger scale than local authorities, because Governments cover more ground and have more money, so when things go wrong for Governments, they very often go wrong more comprehensively.
	Secondly, a local authority that goes wrong is pretty directly answerable to its people, in the sense that they can see what it has done locally. Thirdly—and this is the guts of the whole theory and culture of the Bill—until and unless we are willing to say that local people should be able to make their own mistakes, and should be answerable to their local electors when they make those mistakes, we will not ensure that our population is seriously engaged in local democracy and local participation. It is because of the hon. Lady's fears that Governments of various persuasions have for many years fought shy of giving local people real control. As a result, local democracy has become less and less effective and participatory. The Bill seeks to change that, and that is actually in tune with the Government's general objectives. That is the effect that the Minister is trying to achieve, as he has frequently said in debates on his other Bills. We are saying that the single most important thing that we can do is to achieve that effect by giving locals real power of the purse, and that is what the provisions seek to do.
	My last point is that I hope that the Minister will at least make it clear which side of the line he is on. Is he saying that we have misunderstood, and that his new clause 1(3) does the work of the whole of our new clause 6, including subsection (4), in which case we are simply talking about a drafting issue, which we can resolve in another place, or is he saying that our new clause 6(4) is not acceptable to him, because it does more than new clause 1(3)? In that case, we have a point of substance to resolve in another place. It would really be helpful to know which of those situations we will be dealing with in the coming months.

Philip Davies: The hon. Lady may have noticed that I am a Conservative and I do not believe in revolution. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) once said that if it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. That is a sentiment that I tend to endorse.
	I accept the point that the hon. Lady makes. The tension in the Bill is that we all want to see local authorities and local people being given a greater say in what goes on locally. That tension is partly illustrated by the points made by the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Lynda Waltho) when she asked about the safeguards if much more power were invested in local authorities. I would not like to see the new clause or the Bill being used by some overbearing local authorities to start empire-building and adding to their role.
	I would like to see power devolved from national Government to local government, from local authorities to parish councils, and perhaps also from local authorities to the voluntary sector and the charitable sector. I want to see power going one way—down, with no scope for power to go up. That is the thrust of what my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood is trying to achieve in the Bill and why I welcome it so much. I would not like to see—the point that the hon. Member for Stourbridge was making—councils empire-building and taking on additional functions that could be done better at an even more local level. That was a fair point.

Anne Main: I support the Bill, because local people feel impotent and frustrated. Most of us accept that impotence is frustrating, but it concentrates the mind wonderfully at a local level—I look to hon. Members to support that statement.
	Local people say, "What is the point in voting, when we have so little say over changes in our community?" They feel that so much has been directed at them from on high, and if we can repatriate that feeling of control over the shaping of local communities, they would be a lot happier because they would be much more engaged. People who are involved in local communities, charities and directing good works turn up regularly to events, but they have so little say. If people turn up and present their view, they feel that it is ignored. That situation cannot continue, which is why I welcome the Bill. New clause 6 would provide some clout at a local level.
	People are heartily sick of being dumped on. In my community, we have problems with road noise. People were promised whisper-quiet tarmac, but four or five years down the line, the promise was dumped and nobody heard anything more about it. If the local council had been able to say, "Here is the money. It will be used for that," repatriating control to a local level would possibly have meant that my constituents in Bricket Wood would not be complaining like mad about the state of the roads and road noise.
	We should consider environmental sustainability and not just tack it on as a word in front of everything that we do. I want to give the Minister an example of the frustration that local people feel. People feel that they have no control over planning at a local level, because alterations to planning law mean that what the Government say must be implemented. I am sure that this example is not an isolated incident and that similar events have occurred in other constituencies. Only three weeks ago, planning permission was granted for a block of 12 flats with one parking space, which is simply for disabled parking, so that block of flats has no parking spaces. That supposedly makes the block sustainable within planning policy statement 6, which states that parking does not have to be provided in a sustainable location. Local people had their say, but they could not effect a change. If they had been given the control to put in extra transport or extra facilities, they might have accepted that the block was sustainable, but they feel that they have been given more clutter on local roads.
	The situation cannot continue. I am very concerned about environmental sustainability. I participated in an Adjournment debate on housing totals for Hertfordshire—the Minister was not present—where I pointed out that sustainable communities should be environmentally sustainable. Local people feel that they have much to contribute and that they have been ignored. The Government have not conducted any environmental capacity studies on the Hertfordshire housing totals that have been imposed on us. Anecdotally, local people feel that they can tell the Government much about the state of the M25 and the roads around our area. They can tell the Government what we need to deliver those housing totals, should we have to deliver them. It is worrying that we are given those things to deliver but have little say about how we will deliver them and the impact on our communities. If the Bill means that we will have some say, some control and a way of shaping our community and not just delivering what the Government want us to deliver, then it will be all to the good.
	Like many hon. Members, I have some concerns about whether there will be failures under the Bill. However, it is the nature of our belief, as Conservatives, that it is no good saying to people, "Yes, you can have choice. Yes, you can shape your place. Yes, you can determine your community. However, if we think that you are doing it wrongly, we will quickly whip those powers off you and tell you what is best." Many of my hon. Friends and I do not subscribe to the nanny state, and I know from my postbag that many of the public do not, too.
	People do not have a political motive when they write to me and say, "We are sick of being dumped on. We are sick of being told what we have to do." The fallout is that people do not vote and do not attend council meetings. I have been a parish councillor and a district councillor. I remember packed parish meetings, where people debated small things happening in a village. Those people cared about that place and had a sense of place and community that meant that they genuinely cared. Such people would not spend money irresponsibly, and if a parish council or district council were to do that, the council would, as other hon. Members have said, be booted out. The best way to establish accountability and to relieve impotence and frustration is for people to go up to their local councillor and say, "This is what I value in my community."

Philip Hollobone: I support new clause 6. I should like to draw to the Minister's attention a possible early application of the Bill were it to pass into law. In the borough of Kettering, we have a particular problem with parking in the town centre. For many years, that has been the responsibility of the local police. The local police do many wonderful things in catching criminals and bringing them to justice, but it is fair to say that they have not had a terribly strong record on parking enforcement. Indeed, if I tell the Minister that Kettering currently enjoys the services of just one traffic warden who is now largely funded by Kettering borough council, as opposed to the police, perhaps he will realise the extent of our problem. This extends to the whole issue of the decriminalisation of on-street parking enforcement.
	For years, throughout the country, local police forces have been given the responsibility for enforcing on-street car parking. They have not been doing it properly, and local councils have taken up powers to undertake those procedures themselves. However, I am not aware that in Northamptonshire the moneys that the local police were meant to be spending on parking enforcement have in any sense been transferred to the local authorities who have taken on those responsibilities. In Northamptonshire, the county council has now taken responsibility for on-street parking enforcement for most of the district areas in the county—but not, I am happy to say, in Kettering. I serve as a borough councillor in Kettering, and we are going to try to hold our ground. In our view, on-street parking enforcement would best be done by the borough council, which is fully aware of the needs of local people, local sensitivities and the particular issues that arise. Northamptonshire county council has many good qualities, but I am afraid that being aware of the particular local sensitivities of people in Kettering with regard to traffic issues is not one of them.
	Kettering borough council does have responsibility for off-street car parking and raises a considerable amount of local revenue from that. In our view, it would make sense to put on-street parking enforcement together with off-street parking enforcement and run an incredibly efficient town centre parking enforcement operation. That would be to the benefit of residents and shoppers in the town because it would help to create a new vibrancy in the town centre, which is plagued by many different parking difficulties. If the Bill becomes law, there could well be an early application from Kettering borough council, having consulted the local police and the county council, to take over on-street parking enforcement in Kettering borough. If that were the case, as the local MP I would want to draw that to the attention of the Secretary of State and urge him or her to approve that application.
	At the moment, the mechanism whereby Kettering borough council can advance its cause is not clear to me. It is locked in a dispute with the county council that will be difficult to resolve, despite the fact that on many issues, at a local level, there is a lot of good will between the two local authorities. That is best evidenced by the recent discussions locally about the Government's intention to try to bounce the people of Northamptonshire into a unified local authority, which I am pleased to say local councillors at borough, district and county levels, after much debate and discussion, universally agreed to reject in favour of enhanced local co-operation at three levels of local government—the county council, the district and borough councils, and the parish councils.
	I believe that the enhanced local government network initiative in Northamptonshire will be one of the leading lights in the country for the way in which local authorities deliver their services effectively to local people. A good example is the customer service centre at Kettering borough council in the middle of the town. A local resident who goes to the customer service centre is not immediately aware of which local authority runs that centre, which is a joint initiative between the county council, Kettering borough council and other local agencies. That well run centre aims to ensure that the local resident who turns up asking for a local service gets what he or she wants in the quickest possible time. There is no particular pride in ownership—all the local councils agree that that resident should be served as quickly and helpfully as possible.
	I use the opportunity of the debate to flag up to the Minister for Local Government that I hope that he accepts the new clause and that the Bill becomes law. If the Bill does become law, I hope that an early application will come his way from Kettering borough council to try to resolve the local parking problems.

Phil Woolas: I congratulate the sponsors of the Bill and especially the promoter. The hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) again spoke eloquently about his Bill. He has shown great skill and gone out of his way to be consensual. I shall comment on the hon. Member for the independent republic of Shipley (Philip Davies) shortly. I thank the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) and my hon. Friends who served on the Committee.
	The Committee was unusual for the hon. Members who served on it and for me as the Minister who responded on behalf of the Government. I sat on the Front Bench with my fantastically loyal Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), whom I also thank, and without a member of the Whips Office to look after me and keep me on the straight and narrow. I now welcome the presence of the Whips, who bring certainty and provide gentle reminders of when one is straying beyond Government policy.
	The experience was also unusual for another reason. I appreciate that it is not normal to mention civil servants and I hope that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will not mind my paying tribute to them. It is difficult for Government officials, who worked extraordinarily hard for me, my team and the Committee, to work outside Government policy. When dealing with a private Member's Bill, one inevitably has to adapt policy to meet objectives sometimes by the hour during the course of deliberations. There has been no lack of willingness to help the Minister. Officials have gone through the proper procedures of Cabinet Government to get Government clearance and rightly abided by the advice of parliamentary counsel, which is independent. Ministers are obliged to act on the advice of parliamentary counsel. If that were not the case, we would politicise the law and make bad law.
	I am now delighted to report to the House that I have Government clearance and parliamentary counsel advice to support the Bill. It is the Government's policy that it should reach the statute book. I give those assurances not only to hon. Members who served on the Committee, but to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who is not in his place, but who is promoting the next Bill that we will discuss. I wanted to stress to him that it is Government policy to support the measure that we are considering.
	I ask hon. Members not to accept new clause 6 but to adopt new clauses 1 and 2 instead. I can give the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) the assurance that he needs and has requested. Our advice is that we can achieve the intention of new clause 6 on function, money and a proper process following the spending report and other matters better through new clauses 1 and 2 than through new clause 6. The problem is not therefore one of principle.

Roger Williams: I support the principles of new clause 6 but could the Minister comment on the applicability of the new clause—and, indeed, the whole Bill—to Wales? Although it states that it is an England and Wales measures, a Library research paper on the Committee stage states:
	"The Bill is now intended to apply to English local authority areas only."
	When did the change occurred? Hon. Members who served on the Committee were unaware of that change.

Phil Woolas: Yes. I am trying to think of which of my colleagues may have done so!

Tony Cunningham: Don't go there!

Phil Woolas: Yes, but of course the success of the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood in gaining first place in the ballot was not known when the Queen's Speech was compiled. Throughout the process, however, my and the Government's objective has been to use the Bill in a positive and constructive way. Given the widespread support either for the Bill or for the idea behind it, I have wanted to use—use in the best sense, not abuse—the momentum to draw attention to some of our policies.
	Clause 108, which is now clause 139, of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill is, in my view, one of the most important statutory measures for local government since the second world war. However, nobody other than me had even heard of it before the Local Works campaign put full-page adverts in the papers to draw attention to the significance of clause 108, so there has been a coming together. I must move on now.
	The hon. Member for Shipley also talked about devolution, arguing that political parties argue for it in opposition, but keep power centrally when in government. To be fair, the Government have a reasonable record on devolving powers. This Bill does not apply to Scotland because we have devolved power to Scotland. Some of my colleagues may well think that in the light of recent changes there we should not have done so, but that is devolution—we have to trust the people. Our framework for local government has sometimes been criticised for being over-centralised, but it has improved the position and we are now in a genuine period of devolution. That is not beginning with the legislation before the other place, as other measures have preceded it. We have devolved powers and, as I have said, I believe that English councils should be the next part of the country to which significant powers should be devolved.
	On a lighter note, the hon. Member for Shipley said that he feared that my Secretary of State might act on a whim. Let me assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Ruth Kelly) never acts on a whim. She has given me full support in respect of this Bill. Given the processes of decision making in government, it would not have been possible to have acted as quickly without it. The hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood said that he thought that progress on his Bill had been very slow at times and apologised for it, but believe me, in comparison with Government decision making, this has been quick! As to the argument that progress requires a Secretary of State who is genuinely devolutionary, it is important to note that history often reveals different views on different Secretaries of State, but in any event, this Bill locks in the devolutionary powers, which is one of the reasons why we welcome it.
	The hon. Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) was concerned about what many of us are concerned about in the modern world: the involvement of local people and the feelings of frustration over the absence of it. All the evidence is that giving more information, providing greater transparency and facilitating a greater degree of participation are positive developments, but whether or not the public then choose to use that is, in democratic politics, a matter for them. We politicians would like everyone to vote and everyone to turn out at meetings and be as interested in politics as we are, but I am really not sure whether I would like to live in a country where that happened. I want people to have the opportunity to take part; I do not want to compel them. I recognise, of course, the frustration that the hon. Lady described. A little later, I shall point out some of the contradictions in what she said, but may I assure her that I strongly believe that clause 139 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, which provides for a duty to inform, consult and involve people and organisations, will, along with this Bill, help to change the situation.
	The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) rightly keeps reminding us about raised expectations. I am sure that the hon. Member for St. Albans would agree that part of the frustration she describes comes from the fact that if people attend a meeting and think that they have taken a decision that subsequently does not materialise—either because it was a false promise, because the power to do it was not available or for disingenuous reasons—they will not turn out to meetings again. We all have to try to change that.

Phil Woolas: On the whole, I agree with the hon. Lady, but as a planning Minister I have to act within the law and within the independent advice that I am given from the planning authorities in order to be fair to everyone. I can give the hon. Lady some encouragement in that the changes made to the code of conduct take away some of the fetters on local councillors that prevent them from speaking about planning. The restriction of the activity of local councillors came about more through case law than through planning law. The code of conduct is addressing that point. Some of the issues dealt with in the planning White Paper will also help towards meeting the hon. Lady's point.
	I cannot comment on the hon. Lady's particular example, but I am more than willing to look further into it for her. On the face of it, it seems that it could fall outside the planning guidance, but I should not give any commitments. However, she cannot say on the one hand that we all want an environmentally sustainable future and then say on the other hand that we want more car parks. We need a policy that recognises that difficulty— [Interruption.] I was going to ask for your help there, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but the hon. Lady has seen sense.
	The issue of road noise and the need for tarmac was also raised. I presume that that is a county matter. It is also a matter of money, and the issue of who pays is relevant. We all know, as elected politicians, that the public want to have their cake and eat it. They want low taxes and improved services, and I understand that—

Phil Woolas: That depends on what happens in 12 days' time —[ Laughter. ] Let us get the legislation through before then. The answer is yes, because we want the arrangements in place before then. That will also ensure that the relevant provisions of both Bills—this Bill and the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, if it meets the approval of the other place—include a sensible timetable for coming into force, so that we get the best of both worlds. That will also avoid confusion. Local authorities often make the point that different commencement dates cause confusion and can be self-defeating. By taking that date, I can introduce a package of measures from both Bills, and I am grateful for the support of the members of the Committee on that point. Amendments Nos. 23 and 24 are consequential on amendment No. 22.
	I was also asked why provision for accountability to Parliament was not included in new clause 6. The accountability to Parliament and the measures that flow from that are included in new clause 3(3) and I hope that that is to the satisfaction of the members of the Committee. If Parliament is not informed, the accountability does not follow.
	With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I wish to refer to new clauses 1, 2 and 3. The point has been made about what was described in Committee as the narrative. There must be something that flows from the local spending reports and the other measures. Unfortunately for me, my proposals come in the Bill before new clause 5, but my argument is that coherent legislation is more important than my ability to understand my speaking notes—as the right hon. Member for West Dorset teased me in Committee. I hope that I can convince the House that the narrative is fully in place.
	The Government have proposed measures as a replacement for the existing clause 5, which itself replaced the original clause 5 that we debated on Second Reading. Oppositions often accuse Governments of giving the "not invented here" reason for opposing amendments. New clauses 1 and 2 were invented by the Committee, in that the policy and the sentiment were taken from the Committee, translated by me into instructions to parliamentary counsel and given back to me. Although those new clauses are in my name, I see them as the proposals from the Committee's deliberations. My reason for asking the House to agree those clauses rather than new clause 6 is not, I assure the right hon. Member for West Dorset, because I did not invent it.
	New clauses 1, 2 and 3 will strengthen the core measures in the Bill by encouraging local people to make proposals that go to central Government, about what Government can do to help them sustain their local community. They will codify and set out that process, so that in the same way that the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill codifies the right of the citizen and the local councillor to have a process by which the council and its partners must respond, this Bill will provide the right of local people, through the local authority, to have a process by which the Government must respond. The role of the selector will assist that enormously. Tasking the Local Government Association with that role will add transparency and order to that process.
	The provisions also require local authorities to consult representatives of local people, including under-represented groups, if they choose to make proposals. I have included that point in the Bill at the request of the Committee to provide reassurance that that is the case. The provisions also introduced what I have described as new consultation plus, which will require the local authority to try to reach agreement with the representatives. Concern was expressed in Committee that what is now clause 139—it was clause 108 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill—was not strong enough, so we have tried to strengthen that.
	The provisions also require the Government to appoint a body—in practice, the Local Government Association—to present them with a shortlist of proposals, also with the new consultation plus to require the Government to consult, co-operate and reach agreement with the LGA. That will provide accountability and transparency by requiring the Government to publish their responses to all proposals; to publish an action plan; to lay reports on progress annually before Parliament, which meets the point raised by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire; and to enable local authorities, for the first time, to request a transfer of function from one body to another if they believe that it will better promote the sustainability of their local community. I will give the reassurances that were asked for regarding the transfer of functions and money, based on the advice and definitions that I have been given.

Philip Hollobone: I do not anticipate Kettering borough council's making any representations about foreign policy. However, if what the Minister said is accurate, there could be a representation from, say, Northamptonshire county council, which looks after local roads, regarding taking over responsibility for a road that comes under the remit of the Highways Agency. Such a move might help local development proposals. My understanding is that the Bill as now drafted would allow for that.

Phil Woolas: That is absolutely right. It is both my policy intention and, I am told, the practical impact of the measure, and that is desirable, especially when combined with the powers to co-operate in the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, although I do not want to over-egg those, because they are duties to co-operate in setting goals. The processes to achieve such functions, in so far as they exist at the moment, are cumbersome, bureaucratic, opaque and the stuff of late-night red boxes full of immense detail. They benefit neither the Government nor the local area. The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire is not in the Chamber, but I could wax lyrical about the Bridlington harbour board, where the development of Bridlington was delayed because there was no set process. the hon. Member for Kettering gives us a good example of what can happen.
	Let me make the position on Wales clear. We all have the idea that we should empower Wales to apply the Bill's measures if it wants to. To that extent, the Bill covers Wales. However, as a result of an amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood, the Bill was changed in Committee on 23 May. The Government of Wales Act 2006 and the local government Bill give power to the Assembly to legislate in many local government matters. I am advised that the Assembly could enact a version of this Bill, and I will need to discuss that with my colleagues in the Welsh Government. In essence, the Bill does not impose itself on Wales, but measures taken in the 2006 Act and the local government Bill, should Parliament adopt it, will allow the measures in this Bill to be taken up in Wales. That is an important matter for my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) and others. It is one of those devolved matters on which we have to decide whether we should tell the Assembly how to act. The same problem arises with the interaction of the proposed local panels.

Phil Woolas: The hon. Gentleman makes an accurate point on police funding. Policies on police funding, in particular the precept, where some powers rest in Cardiff and some in London, require the Welsh Assembly Government and the UK Government to get their act together, which we successfully did eventually for police funding for this current financial year.
	On the core of the difficulties raised by the right hon. Member for West Dorset and the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood, the latter places great importance on including a specific provision to enable local authorities to request the transfer of function from one body to another. That is his first issue. I have made that provision in subsections (2) and (3) of new clause 1. Following on from that, he has three concerns. One is that replacing clause 5 with my provisions rather than his will disrupt the narrative—the understanding—of the Bill. As I said, I have some sympathy for that, but it is the integrity of the legislation and its consistency that concern me. That will be important in the other place. We must be able to show that the Bill is consistent.
	Should new clause 1 be adopted, I would be more than happy to work with the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood—indeed, I would welcome it—to develop a broader narrative, in the wider sense of the word, to explain the Bill to local authorities and the wider public in documents or other material in plain English. This is a useful opportunity for me to make a point about plain English, although I know that he is not criticising us in that regard. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said that part of the problem with engaging the public is the language that we and public institutions use. Anybody who attended the Adjournment debate last night on the north-east regional spatial strategy would have needed a masters degree in public administration to keep up with it. It was difficult enough just reading my speech out. The subject of the debate of my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) is hugely important to the north-east, but the language used was impenetrable. I take my share of the responsibility for that. We want to explain the Bill in plain English, so that the public understand it and do not have false expectations.
	I shall now turn to a more substantive objection. New clause 6 allows local authorities, having considered information in a local spending report, to
	"make a recommendation to the Secretary of State for a transfer of functions from one person to another."
	It goes on to say that
	"the Secretary of State must either adopt and implement...or reject the recommendation"
	within six months, and that if functions are transferred
	"the moneys for the discharge of those functions shall also be transferred"
	and
	"any local authority to which the functions are transferred may determine the policies to deliver the objectives of the function".
	The difficulty with that is that, in effect, local authorities would decide how any public money in their area should be spent and how any public functions should be delivered. If they could not convince their local partners to agree, they would call in the Secretary of State to arbitrate—and, they would hope, to take their funding and functions off them. That is not only impractical, but undesirable for the following reason. It would require the Secretary of State to step into any number of local disputes between local partners. The Secretary of State's remedy would be to compel the transfer of one body's functions and funding to a local authority. In that respect, the measure would strengthen the hand of the Secretary of State to determine what happens locally. Therefore, it would create further centralisation, not devolution.
	There is also concern that the Government's drafting and process for achieving the transfer of functions does not include funding. That is simply a drafting point. The function includes the finance; we are very clear about that. If a proposal were made about transfer of a function, it is extremely likely—and would, therefore, most often be the case—that it would cover a proposal about moving funding. A proposal covering transfer of function and movement of funding would clearly, therefore, fall within new clause 1. That is not only my view; it is also the view of the lawyers.

Oliver Letwin: We are getting close to the nub of the argument. Let us return to the Minister's example of the Blackburn slipper. If a transfer of functions were sought from the NHS, or a public health aspect of the Department of Health, to the local authority to enable the local authority to provide the slippers, would the local authority have the power under new clause 1 to achieve the objective of improving public health by a means which the body giving over the function to the local authority would not have been empowered to engage in itself? In other words, in this case, would the local authority be able to give the slippers to the pensioners if the body from which it was getting the function and the money had not had the power to do so under its own remit? If the answer is that it would have those powers under new clause 1, we are where we need to be. If, as I suspect, the answer is no, and the local authority would be constrained to doing only those things that the body from which it derived the functions was able to do under its vires, new clause 1 does not quite get to where the Minister and I want to get to.

Phil Woolas: I will not repeat myself, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and you would not allow me to anyway. I am grateful to you for allowing such latitude in the debate on the new clause 6, which is the other side of the coin to new clauses 1 and 2. I shall just take the opportunity to put on record some information that I hope will be beneficial to the House.
	First, I will talk about the words, "if any", which would be omitted by amendment (a) to new clause 2, which the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood tabled. I will not make a big fuss about the issue. The formal situation is that the original drafting included the words "if any", which presented the Government with a problem because it meant that there was compulsion on the Secretary of State. The hon. Gentleman may argue that that is a jolly good thing, and in some circumstances I could see myself arguing that. However, since I asked my colleagues for their views on the matter, there has been a change, namely the insertion in new clause 2 of "co-operation".
	I have listened to the argument, and do not want to make a big thing about the issue. I would prefer that the amendment not be made, because it is not necessary, and it ties the Secretary of State down. The argument has moved on and I would be interested to hear what the intention behind the amendment is. I hope that that helps.
	I give the assurance that the Government are not looking for a get-out. We want the process to work, and we want the proposals that come from the action plan and the selector to be workable. Including a requirement for co-operation in the production of the shortlist would make it most likely that the proposals made were workable. It is difficult to envisage a situation in which any Government presented with a shortlist of high-quality consensual proposals would simply turn them all down. There may be circumstances in which that would happen, but it would be a foolish Government who did that. From time to time, we have had foolish Governments, but that is not the case at the moment, of course.
	The clause is drafted as it is simply to ensure that if at any point the selector produces a shortlist that does not contain proposals that could be implemented, the Secretary of State would not be required to implement them. As I say, the change made by introducing the word "co-operation" is important. Hon. Members will be aware that the Bill places little restriction on the selector in terms of how they arrive at a shortlist, what is on it, and how proposals are presented to the Secretary of State. There could be a shortlist of one, although I do not imagine that that would be the case, or the shortlist could contain only proposals that would be very expensive to implement or that conflicted in a significant way with a Government's manifesto policy. However, I cannot foresee that situation occurring, because of the relationships that exist between central and local government, which are broadly good at the moment. We have a very good working relationship with the Local Government Association—it might in time break down, but I hope not. The arguments are valid, but on balance I would not go to the wall on them, particularly, as I say, because of that co-operation.
	I have explained to the House my objectives in new clause 1 and how I think they will strengthen the Bill. The requirement on the Secretary of State—the word used is "must"—to invite local authorities to make proposals is covered by new clause1. I do not intend to go into the detail of the proposal, as we have already discussed it at great length. I draw the attention of the House to new clause 1 to show how it fits into the narrative.
	Just as local people and councillors are being given new rights and new powers, so too should local authorities be given new rights and new powers to make proposals. The clause provides the reassurances that local partners will need. A local body—the highways authority has been used as an example—has a right to be consulted about a proposal to change its function. As I have said before, that right to be consulted is more likely to lead to the outcome that we seek. Subsection (5) sets a timetable of one year, and I have explained why that is the case.
	There is no limit on the number of proposals on the shortlist. The proposals from local authorities would go to the selector. I shall repeat an assurance, for the avoidance of doubt and for the benefit of the House and those listening—I am reminded that obscure though the debates on a Friday often are, on this occasion my words are being listened to and read very carefully. Last night my answering machine was full of messages of encouragement, such as, "Don't back down, you so-and-so." It is amazing how cynical some people can be. The industrial language used by some of them was fluent, and those were just the members of the Labour party. I paid particular attention to the 100-plus letters that I received from the fine people of Oldham, East and Saddleworth, who are the finest in the nation, and the most important newspaper on planet Earth, the  Oldham Evening Chronicle , is watching and listening closely. I repeat: there is no intention to water down the measure.
	The provision in new clause 2 for us to appoint a selector gives reassurance and establishes a sensible process. We are talking to the Local Government Association about the matter. Letters of support have no doubt been received by hon. Members across the House. We want the proposals to be workable, and it is desirable that we help to strengthen the LGA as well.
	New clause 2 as drafted states:
	"On receiving the short-list from the selector, the Secretary of State must decide which, if any, of the proposals on the short-list should be implemented."
	She or he
	"must consult the selector and try to reach agreement."
	That is enshrined in the proposals. The narrative of the Bill is built on that.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman was in danger of making a Third Reading speech, which is something that I shall bear in mind.

Nick Hurd: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Third time.
	I would like to place on record my thanks to a few people. Taking a private Member's Bill through this place is an enormous privilege but, as the Minister has said, it is also a daunting task for a new Member, and I simply would not have been able to do it without the help of a number of people, starting with the Clerks in the Public Bill Office, who have shown extraordinary patience with me. I should also like to thank those hon. Members who served on the Committee, many of whom are here today, not least my sponsors, the hon. Members for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) and for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who have given me great support throughout the process.
	I should particularly like to place on record my respect for and gratitude to the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who has educated me as to what a Parliamentary Private Secretary can achieve—I had always wondered—and set a benchmark for loyalty, tenacity and the power to persuade when one has no power to do so. I know that she has enjoyed the process. We would not be where we are without her support, and our friends at Local Works would also like to place on record their thanks to her.
	I certainly thank the Minister. He had to juggle a number of balls throughout this complicated process, but he always argued his case clearly and was open and extremely constructive. He was kind about my political prospects and I have no doubt that his star will continue to rise and that he will grace shadow Cabinets for many years to come.
	Last but not least, I am sure that my sponsors would want to join me in expressing thanks to Local Works, for which the Bill is the culmination of a four-year campaign. Without the group's tenacity and its success in building coalitions, which spanned organisations from the women's institute to the Campaign for Real Ale, to put pressure on the Government, I doubt that we should have reached this stage today.
	The Bill is an honest attempt to help communities address the social problems that arise from community decline and the loss of local services. To some degree, the debate today has been technical and wrapped in an envelope of questions about localism, governance and the devolution of power, but the Bill's starting point was the need to respond to the clear social problems of community decline, which is, as we realise, market-driven. However, we should not forget that loss of local services inspired the coalition, rather than questions about localism or how we govern ourselves. The starting point for the Bill was a desire for a policy response to the problems—that is the passion outside this place.
	One could say that if people want to support the high street they should just get their wallets out and walk down it, but we need a policy response from this place. That is the driver of the Bill. Part of that response must be central Government's responsibility to pull strategy together in a coherent framework—what we call a national action plan. The point of the Bill was not to be prescriptive but to create the mechanics to do something important—to make sure that the strategy was driven from the bottom up with the full engagement of the communities we represent. We have made considerable progress in achieving that aim.
	The main point of the Bill is to give communities real influence in shaping their future. The Bill gives greater transparency to the spending of public money in local areas, which is important, but we intend to pursue the real prize—to give people the opportunity to influence how that money is spent. We had a useful debate about new clause 6 and the Minister has given us assurances from which we can take comfort, so we will consider them.
	We have made real progress today. The Bill is more workable than the version we debated on 19 January, although we still need some clarification about money issues and new clause 6. The Bill is not an end; it is only the start—the first ratchet in a process that will empower people to be more engaged in building and sustaining their communities. We have started an irreversible process and I commend the Bill to the House.

Clive Efford: It was a pleasure to serve on the Committee and I congratulate the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who have been pursuing the Bill for some time, supported by the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy). They all deserve much congratulation.
	I join in the congratulation of my hon. Friend the Minister. Although the Bill was supported on both sides of the House, there were difficulties for him at times, especially when he looked behind him at some of the more independent-minded—and hirsute—Labour Members who had miraculously been selected to serve on the Committee, but he dealt with those situations with consummate skill. He was supported ably by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), his Parliamentary Private Secretary who helped to overcome some of the difficulties faced during the passage of the Bill.
	The test of the Bill, as it will be for the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, is whether it empowers those sections of the community that do not engage in our democratic processes and civic structures. We had long debates in Committee about the people who meet in front rooms in villages to try to influence what happens in their local community. The key is to ensure that all sections of the community are empowered and encouraged to engage. One of the ways to empower them is to provide information, which is key to their being able to make choices about how their local community should be improved. I am an inner-city Member of Parliament and the test will be whether we can engage with those sections of the community who do not have a great deal of influence over how decisions are made in their area. This Bill, and the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, will be a step in the direction of empowering those people.
	I congratulate all those who have been involved in achieving the consensus. I wish the Bill every success.

Gregory Barker: "Sustainable Communities" is not only the name of the Bill, but one of the great imperatives of British politics in 2007. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) said, the Bill provides a framework for people who want to underpin and nurture sustainable communities. It also provides an encouraging signpost for people who might be disillusioned about whether we in Westminster are able to influence the things that they care about. More importantly, they wonder whether it is worth getting involved with their local community. The Bill is the answer to all those people who say, "Is it really worth my while? Should we bother?" because it will provide a reason and a vehicle for them to get involved and help shape their community.
	In my constituency, the Bill will be particularly welcomed by the traders and residents of Little Common, who are fighting inappropriate development and planning applications. They will be able to feel a sense of real ownership of the development of their local community, where they want to preserve village life. It will also be welcomed by the people who are fighting for the post office in Staple Cross and other post offices that are under threat across my constituency. The Bill will reinforce their belief and hope that they can have a real say.
	I am particularly pleased that the Bill will go through the House today because I was a co-sponsor of its previous incarnation in the last Parliament. The way in which its provisions have been taken forward by those directly concerned with the Bill before us is a great credit to Members of all parties—to the Minister, the Government, and all the Opposition parties. We can all be very proud of the way in which the House of Commons has responded to the great enthusiasm and demand that there is for the Bill in the country, proud of the sensible way in which it was scrutinised in Committee and proud of the way in which Members have picked their way through a complex and at times vague piece of legislation. We have ended up with a Bill that is robust, that reflects public concerns, and that will, I hope, address them. The whole process started with Local Works, which deserves huge credit for making the Bill a reality. I am very pleased to be associated with the Bill today.

David Drew: It was because you've got a beard.

Richard Younger-Ross: I add my congratulations to all those who have participated. I will not list them, except for the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd), who has done a stunning job in introducing the Bill.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned that the Bill is just the beginning and that the process needs to go further. I hope that the Government will consider the point that the Bill is the start of a process.
	For 40 years, we have witnessed the strange death of rural Britain and of the British high street. The Bill is significant, because it will enable the resurrection of those high streets and those communities. It is very important.

Andrew Dismore: That would depend on the basis on which the contracting out was done. If it was done as part of the local authority's public function, it would fall within the scope of the Human Rights Act, but not if it was done on any other basis. The position will become clearer as I continue.
	The gap is not simply a theoretical legal problem—we just had an example of that—but a problem with significant and immediate practical implications as many services previously delivered by public authorities become privatised or contracted out to private suppliers. The law has failed to adapt to that reality.
	The implications of this failure extend across the range of especially vulnerable people in society, including elderly people in private residential care or nursing homes, tenants in housing association properties, children outside the maintained education sector and looked-after children in receipt of children's services.
	In its 2004 report on the subject—I believe that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) was instrumental in organising the inquiry as she was a member of the Committee at the time and endorsed its recommendations—the Joint Committee on Human Rights examined several possible solutions, including amending the Human Rights Act 1998 to make clear the responsibility of organisations in carrying out public functions to protect human rights, protecting human rights in terms of the contracts between public authorities and private providers of public services, backed by authoritative guidance on when an organisation was likely to be classed as a public authority for purposes of the Act, and the development of case law on the meaning of public authority.
	At that time, at such an early stage after implementation, the Committee took the view that amendment of the Act would be likely to create as many problems as it solved. Guidance on the formulation of contracts and best practice would be helpful, it argued, but could not provide a complete or enduring solution. It argued that the Government as a third party should intervene in the public interest in cases where a broader interpretation could be argued for. The Government accepted those recommendations at the time.
	Three years on from that report, a number of significant developments have taken place and, generally speaking, they have been none to the good. In November 2005, the Government published guidance to local authorities on contracting for services in the light of the Human Rights Act. That guidance was reviewed in our most recent report, published in March this year. We made a number of criticisms and recommendations, stressing that guidance alone could not solve the problem.
	The reality is that the method of using guidance has proved utterly unsatisfactory and negative in respect of dealing with the difficulties surrounding the use of contracts to secure better protection of human rights. It dissuaded procurement officers from taking a positive approach and no model process was recommended. We found that the guidance was badly written, difficult to follow and suffered from a lack of publicity. The guidance lacked accessibility and, being written in highly technical language, it was difficult to understand. It was hard to find, hard to follow and did not give any practical examples. There were no mechanisms in place to monitor the impact on procurement practice and local authorities were in general unaware of the guidance's existence and it had little effect or influence on their policy. Without the use of model or standard contract terms, that guidance was not going develop a consistent approach to public service commissioning and to human rights.
	We felt that without significant joint efforts on the part of the then Department for Constitutional Affairs, now the Ministry of Justice, and the Department for Communities and Local Government, the guidance would continue to fail. We saw it simply as a stop-gap that could not ultimately protect human rights through the use of contractual terms. It could never be a substitute for the direct application of the Human Rights Act to service providers.
	Following the Leonard Cheshire judgment, the Government have intervened in cases before the courts to try to broaden the definition of public authority. The Government strategy in acting in this way has not so far been successful and risks making a complex area of law increasingly uncertain and difficult for people to understand.
	In the current the House of Lords case of the Crown (on the application of Johnson and others)  v. the London borough of Havering, the Government have argued that the meaning of "public authority" covers elderly and vulnerable people who are receiving care from a private provider on behalf of a public authority. The case concerned whether local authority care homes that were transferred to the private sector remained public authorities in respect of local authority-placed residents. The Government have been unsuccessful so far, but the appeal is being heard and we await the judgment of the House of Lords, which I understand is due to be handed down this Wednesday.
	The Joint Committee on Human Rights found that even if the issue were resolved in respect of the residential care sector, further complex litigation would be likely to arise in other areas. The Government could choose to intervene only in those sectors that it considers should attract public authority status and not others in which Parliament had previously been led to believe would be subject to the application of the Act. We were concerned that whatever decision was reached in the House of Lords, it would be unlikely to lead to an enduring and effective solution to the interpretive problems associated with the meaning of public authority. Waiting for a solution to arise through the evolution of the law in this area by judicial interpretation might mean that uncertainties surrounding the Act's application would continue for many years, which we considered to be unacceptable.
	It therefore remains the case that there is an urgent need to ensure that our human rights law clearly protects vulnerable people. The British Institute of Human Rights, for example, has reported on the treatment of residents in residential care homes that clearly amounts to a breach of their human rights. Cases included the circumstances of home closures, notices to individuals to leave homes and inhuman and degrading treatment such as elderly residents being fed their breakfast while sitting on the commode. We in the Joint Committee on Human Rights are about to conclude our own inquiry into the treatment of the elderly in hospitals and care homes. We have received appalling evidence of woeful neglect, lack of dignity and respect and ignorance of the human rights of the elderly.
	The Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), who has responsibility for care services, has made it clear that he considers the present position to be an anomaly that must be addressed. Help the Aged, in its briefing for the Second Reading, has welcomed the proposals in my Bill. It says that 400,000 people are vulnerable to serious violations of their human rights without any recourse to legal remedies. Help the Aged points out that the present arrangements can force life-long couples apart and gives the example of a couple who have been married for 61 years who were placed in homes five miles apart because they had different needs. The wife had advancing dementia and the husband was physically disabled. It was agreed that an adapted taxi would be supplied five days a week for the husband to visit his wife, but the arrangement was stopped because of lack of resources. That is clearly a breach of their human rights, but it is not enforceable.
	Residents have no tenancy or residential rights in care homes and can be asked to leave at any time, and we heard evidence of that time and again in our recent inquiry. Of course, the most extreme example is elder abuse. Help the Aged reckoned that 500,000 older people are believed to be being abused at any one time in the UK. It claims that the loophole left by the Leonard Cheshire judgment has grave consequences for vulnerable older people, as approximately 90 per cent. of care homes and 60 per cent. of domiciliary care agencies are run by private or voluntary organisations. It views the Bill as a crucial opportunity to reconsider the meaning of public authority and it urges hon. Members to support it.
	When such poor treatment occurs in a private residential care home, it is not satisfactory for residents to have to rely on interpreting a contract between the local authority and the home's managers, a contract to which they are not a party and in relation to which they have had no say in its drafting or terms. They should be able to enforce their human rights directly.
	In a recent debate on the Government's "Human Rights: Common values, common sense" campaign, the Minister told the House that the Government recognised that the protection of human rights through a contract was a poor substitute for the direct application of the Act to functional public authorities, as intended by Parliament. We reiterate the conclusions to which the Minister signed up in the first report on the meaning of public authority. Human rights cannot be fully and effectively protected through the use of contractual terms and I hope that the Minister will support the Bill today.
	Last October, we asked the Lord Chancellor about the Government's position in an evidence session. In his Department's July 2006 review of the Human Rights Act 1998, he repeated the extraordinary proposition that a "widening" of the definition of public authority could have the effect of driving private providers out of the market. That is extraordinary, because it would not be a widening of the definition, but on all fours with what Lord Irvine of Lairg—the then Lord Chancellor—told Parliament was intended when the Bill was before it.
	Moreover, the appalling implication is that those in private sector care homes, who are probably more vulnerable to abuse than those in in-house facilities, are not to have a right to challenge that abuse in our courts, making them second-class citizens—in growing numbers, as local authorities continue to contract out. The contractors' commercial interests have been put before the decent treatment of the elderly and vulnerable.
	I would be grateful to know whether the Minister agrees with the Lord Chancellor's proposition, or whether her view is that the best way to deal with the issue is
	"to make sure that public and private bodies are treated the same way when they are providing a public service."
	Those are not my words, but the exact answer that I was given by the Prime Minister in February, when I questioned him on this point in the Liaison Committee. I hope that the Minister will be able to say that the Prime Minister is right and that the views expressed by the Lord Chancellor were not an accurate representation of Government policy, at least as it now stands.
	The JCHR concluded in its recent report that amending the Act would be the last resort, but it went on to say that
	"in light of the pressing need for a solution...there is a strong case for a separate, supplementary and interpretative statute"
	to clarify the definition of public authority in the Act. The Bill gives effect to that recommendation.
	The JCHR raised the possibility of legislation to make it clear that any person or body providing goods, services or facilities to the public pursuant to contract with a public authority is a public authority for the specific purposes of the Act. The purpose of my Bill is to reinstate unambiguously the wide and functional interpretation of public authority that was understood by Parliament and Government alike to be the meaning of section 6 when the Act was passed. The intention behind my Bill is to ensure that human rights protections will apply comprehensively, directly and consistently to all those who receive public services from private providers, including the most vulnerable members of our society, such as the elderly in care homes, as I have mentioned.
	The Government say that they are consulting on this issue, but I hope that any consultation will be on the format and text of legislation only, as the JCHR has recommended. The Minister may say that she wants to wait until the Law Lords deliver their forthcoming judgments in the Johnson case—which, of course, is in only five days' time.
	I understand that the Attorney-General has concerns about my Bill's wording, but if given a Second Reading, it will provide a swift way of dealing with this problem, in the event that the Government's intervention with the Law Lords is not successful—a question the answer to which we will know very soon, one way or the other. If the Law Lords do not resolve the issue with clarity, we can put right the wording in Committee and take account of a short period of consultation. There will be ample time to do that, to have a Committee stage and to bring the Bill back to the House in October.
	Time is of the essence for people in care homes and other facilities who ought to benefit from the full protection of the Human Rights Act, but who are currently denied it. I urge the House to support the Bill for these reasons. I urge my hon. and learned Friend not to talk it out, but to remember what her own position was on this vital issue when she was a member of the JCHR. I hope that she still stands by that position, and that she will therefore allow the Bill to proceed.

Simon Burns: May I say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, what a surprising pleasure it is for me, after two years of Trappist vows of silence preventing me from speaking at the Dispatch Box, to be doing so this afternoon? It is a particular pleasure because I was for a time the Minister with responsibility for care for the elderly, and for four and a half years in opposition, I was until two years ago the shadow Minister with such responsibility. Therefore, this is an area in which I have some interest—not from a lawyer's point of view but from that of the clients and users, particularly those in care homes.
	This debate is very timely, because it is of course world elder abuse awareness day. It comes a day after the publication of a report by King's College London and the National Centre for Social Research, funded by Comic Relief and the Department of Health, that highlights that more than 700,000 elderly people are abused in their own homes or in privately run nursing homes. The issue of care for the elderly in society is one of increasing importance, and this Bill has the potential to address a serious associated issue. As many Members have said over the years—that makes the point no less important—it is crucial that those who are more often than not the most frail members of our society have the proper protections and the dignity and quality of life that they deserve. We, as a civilised society, have a duty to ensure that they are protected and are given that quality of life.
	Currently, the Human Rights Act 1998 covers only public authorities and those performing public functions. The Bill, as I understand it, seeks to clarify the meaning of "public authority" as defined in section 6 of the Act. The Bill aims to insert a clause which would ensure that
	"a function of a public nature includes a function performed pursuant to a contract or other arrangement with a public authority which is under a duty to perform that function."
	In plain man's language, that means that the Act would then cover state-funded but privately run care homes, as well as state-funded, state-run ones. It would not impact on privately funded homes.
	My party supports in principle giving the Bill a Second Reading. We support the principle that services provided on behalf of local authorities by the private sector, using taxpayers' money, should face the same level of scrutiny as any public provider would. In addition, we welcome the report, published in March, by the Joint Committee on Human Rights entitled "The meaning of Public Authority under the Human Rights Act", which provided many of the key recommendations in support of this Bill. However, there are a number of issues that we would like to discuss in Committee, should the Bill proceed, and which I will touch on shortly.
	Section 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act states that a "public authority" includes
	"(a) a court or tribunal, and
	(b) any person certain of whose functions are functions of a public nature".
	Section 6 makes it unlawful for a public authority to act in a way that is
	"incompatible with a Convention right."
	It does not provide a list of public authorities to which the Act is applicable, but it has been argued that, because privately run care homes are subcontracted to provide local authority services, they should be included in the definition. On introducing the Bill for its First Reading, the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) argued that the amendment to section 6 would not widen the definition of what constitutes a public authority, but rather
	"be exactly on 'all fours' with what the then Lord Chancellor told Parliament was intended"—[ Official Report, 9 January 2007; Vol. 455, c. 152.]
	when the Human Rights Bill was introduced in 1998.
	This Bill does not seek to identify individual types of categories of public authority in line with the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The hon. Gentleman perhaps made a valid point when he said that the current situation has led to private care home residents being "second-class citizens" in certain circumstances given that they have to rely on interpreting a contract between a local authority and a care home manager to try to enforce their human rights.
	There are many strong arguments in support of the Bill. A key issue is that of care home closures, which the hon. Gentleman briefly mentioned. Under regulation 40 of the Care Home Regulations 2001, state-run and privately run care homes have to give reasonable notice of their intention to close, although no specific time period is mentioned and reasonable notice can mean different things to different people in different circumstances.
	The Bill would ensure that in future private care homes would not be able to close without ensuring continuation of care for their residents. That would be an important safeguard, welcomed by the Conservatives and, I trust, by other parties as well. It would also be welcomed by many charities, such as Age Concern, which has repeatedly expressed its dismay that private care homes can evict residents with no notice and can decide to close as a business without taking into consideration the needs of the residents for whom that institution is their home. All too often, that gets blurred in the debate, but care homes are the homes of those individuals who are resident there. We cannot and must not forget that.
	High-profile court cases have highlighted the need for the situation to be clarified. The 2002 case of R. (others)  v. the Leonard Cheshire Foundation—commonly known as the Leonard Cheshire case—made the news when the judge, and latterly the Court of Appeal, ruled that the foundation could not be deemed to be a public authority within the meaning of section 6 of the Human Rights Act and that it therefore had the right to cease operations, meaning that residents had to be relocated in community-based units. A subsequent and very similar case of Johnson and others  v. the London borough of Havering came to the same conclusion. However, the Court of Appeal expressed disquiet with the view that a privately run care home was not subject to the Human Rights Act and that the issue of care home closure was having to be decided on a case-by-case basis. That would suggest that there is a clear argument that the situation needs the clarification that the Bill would enable.
	However, should the Bill proceed further, some issues will need to be given more consideration than today will allow. It is understandable that independent care home providers are concerned by the Bill's implications. The English Community Care Association outlined many of its concerns about the proposal when it submitted evidence to the Joint Committee while it was forming its report, which was published in March. Some of the concerns included the widespread lack of understanding about the Human Rights Act itself and that an extension of it would not give residents and their families any more confidence in the care system. In addition, concerns have been raised by care providers, as well as others such as the Lord Chancellor, that the Bill could drive private providers out of the market. No detailed analysis has been conducted. That will need to be undertaken if the Bill is to progress further, as will a full regulatory impact assessment.
	All Members rightly believe that more must be done to provide support, protection and rights to those living in care homes or being provided with care, because they are reliant on us for those protections. However, we must not take a broad-brush approach and tar everyone. The vast majority of those who provide care for our elderly citizens—our parents or siblings, perhaps—are genuine and concerned people who give the best care they can by providing the finest quality of life and environment for the people who have made their care homes their homes.

Vera Baird: I welcome the contribution made by the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), who has a good deal of experience to contribute to the debate. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) not only on bringing in the Bill but on his rigorous and resolute work on human rights generally through his role as Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
	One of the Government's first acts when they came into office was to introduce the Human Rights Bill, and since the Act came into force in 2000, people in the UK have been able to enforce their rights and claim their remedies in British courts in front of British judges, which has greatly reduced the need to go to Strasbourg. Alleged breaches of rights can be tested more quickly and more easily, and there has also been a significant impact on policy development.
	The Bill highlights an important issue that has arisen as a result of the courts' narrow interpretation of part of the Human Rights Act 1998. During the passage of the Human Rights Bill, the Government intended that public functions in section 6 should be interpreted widely, to give effective protection to individuals whose rights had been breached. Organisations that are not covered by section 6 are not obliged to act compatibly with the convention rights.
	The then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), made it clear that the definition of "public authority" had to take
	"account of the fact that, over the past 20 years, an increasingly large number of private bodies such as companies or charities have come to exercise public functions that were previously exercised by public authorities."—[ Official Report, 16 February 1998; Vol. 306, c. 773.]
	However, as a consequence principally of the Leonard Cheshire case to which both the previous speakers have alluded, things have not worked out in that way at all.
	As a result of that case law, private companies that deliver the functions of a public authority under contract are not always obliged to respect the convention rights. This particularly includes situations in which private care providers act on behalf of local authorities. It has been made clear that care standards apply to private and public bodies, and that public authorities are under an obligation under the Human Rights Act—as they are undoubtedly public bodies—to take appropriate steps to ensure that those in care are safe. However, following the Leonard Cheshire case, those who are resident in private care homes provided on behalf of a local authority only have remedies against the local authority and not against the care home directly.
	The Government believe that the approach taken to section 6 by the courts in this case has been too narrow, and we are committed to seeking clarification of the meaning of "public authority". If what we hope happens in the House of Lords on Wednesday does not happen, we shall have to tackle the issue in another way. It is our intention to fill this gap. We have followed the advice of the predecessor Committee to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I was serving when it produced a report in 2003—largely instigated by me—on this gap. It was our conclusion—and it was good advice, although I would say that, I suppose—that we should pursue this issue through litigation. That seems to have been the right way forward.
	All we can do is try to intervene in a good case when a good case comes up. We cannot invent a good case, and we cannot make an academic application to the UK courts to ask the court to determine academically what is a public authority and what is not. As cases of this kind do not come up every day, we have had to wait for one. We have now intervened, although not very successfully the first time round. We are also working our way through the precedent system, which means that we have to get to a court above the one that has found the opposite way in the Leonard Cheshire case. This strategy may well have been effective, in that, on Wednesday, we shall have a judgment one way or another on the meaning of "public authority". It follows from what I have already said that we hope that that judgment will reinstate the essentially functional definition of a public authority, which the then Home Secretary and Lord Chancellor set out in the House of Lords. I have already quoted the Home Secretary on the matter.
	It is clear even from our brief debate today that this is not a straightforward issue. We need to ensure that we get the right result. We do not think we should hurry the process with a one-line, one-clause Bill. I do not think I am submitting my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon to criticism that he would not accept when I say that even he would agree that the Bill is not perfectly drafted.
	We would not be happy to continue with a one-clause Bill, trying to amend it on the hoof, when the House of Lords judgment will be given next Wednesday. I say that for the following reasons. The Human Rights Act is a hugely important piece of legislation and it is clear, not least from the contribution of the hon. Member for West Chelmsford, that the rights of many vulnerable people hang on getting a correct definition. That the issue is not simple is made evident by the various interpretations in the courts. Best of all would be that the House of Lords overturn Leonard Cheshire, but if it does not we shall have to take a further element into account: whatever statutory provision is drafted it will again be interpreted by the courts, and if they are bent on a narrowing of the definition we shall have to draft any legislative intervention accordingly. It will be incumbent on us to take note of the strands of reasoning that their lordships put together in coming to their conclusion, either way, so that we follow their thinking and ensure that we drive forward a definition of "public authority" to ensure that the vulnerable people to whom Members have alluded have the care that everybody wants for them.

Charles Walker: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this debate. By happy coincidence, it follows the debate on the Sustainable Communities Bill. Mr. Speaker's hand certainly moves in a mysterious way when it comes to the ballot.
	I shall start with items under the heading "Boring But Important" to set the tone for the debate. UK retail sales average about £246 billion a year, which is more than the combined economies of Switzerland and Ireland; it is therefore a considerable sum of money. Just as important, the UK retail sector employs more than 10 per cent. of the working population, or some 3.1 million people, and half of the UK's approximately 280,000 retailers are managed by sole traders—men and women who add to the wealth of this country.
	Like most people in the Chamber, I believe that our high streets should be at the heart of our community and a focus of civic pride. They are not just a place to shop and to spend money, but a place to socialise and to spend time with our friends and family—and, I dare say, with our Member of Parliament. Vibrant high streets support vibrant local services. If we have popular high streets, we will have good bus links, schools and sub-post offices, and we will arrest the spiral of decline that we often see in high streets where local services leave to be replaced by charity shops—albeit that they do a good job—and takeaways.
	There are obvious environmental advantages to having vibrant local shops and communities. Perhaps the most important advantage is that people do not have to travel miles in their car to go shopping. Local shops are an environmentally sound thing to have. I have nothing against out-of-town shopping centres, but I believe that local shopping centres also have a great deal to offer. At a time when we are worried about carbon emissions and our carbon footprint, that point should be taken into consideration in legislation and strategies.
	I believe that a good high street contains a rich and diverse range of retail offerings including specialist shops, cafés and restaurants. We should try to have unique retail experiences. I hazard a guess that the people of Broxbourne do not want the same retail experiences as the people of Bath and of Burnley, and I am sure that the same is true in the other direction. We must try to guard against our high streets being dominated by national chains and takeaways. That does not encourage a café society or attract people to the town centre to spend quality time with their families and friends.
	One of the key things that can be done to make a good high street is to improve ease of access, which is something on which supermarkets and out-of-town retailers have an advantage over retailers on the high street. Most supermarkets in my constituency have vast car parks that allow people to park almost at the front door. However, in too many of our town centres, motorists are prosecuted and persecuted. Yellow lines, double yellow lines, red lines and double red lines have a negative impact on footfall and restrict people's ability to use their town centres.
	I shall cite two vibrant town centres, although neither is in my constituency: Marlborough in Wiltshire, and Hungerford, which I believe is in Berkshire. Cars can be parked right down the spine of those centres, so people can park in the town centre before using the shops. Both those towns have diverse retail offerings. Although pedestrianisation is popular at the moment, it can create a barrier to people's use of town centres and local shops. Hoddesdon, which is a town in my constituency, allows parking around the town centre, but that does not seem to attract people to it. Its town centre, which is fully pedestrianised, can lack a sense of vibrancy and buzz and feel like a slightly desolate place. I know that policy planning guidance note 6 is not part of the Minister's remit, but let me express the hope that that planning tool can be used for positive change in our towns. It is too often seen as a tool for controlling development, rather than a force for change.
	The need to support local traders and to shop locally will be met if we make our high streets more accessible and welcoming to shoppers. However, I do not want this speech to become an attack on supermarkets. Tesco's headquarters is in Cheshunt in my constituency, and the company employs many hundreds, if not thousands, of my constituents. Like most of my constituents, my wife and I use our local Tesco. We spend a large part of our weekly budget there, and my constituents and I compete over carrots, cakes and bread. In many communities, especially in the north, supermarkets that go into town centres become a powerful factor to encourage regeneration. If footfall in a town centre is increased because people go to a large supermarket, many surrounding retailers will benefit, although that is not always the case.
	It is just possible that when it comes to supermarkets, some places have too much of a good thing. The Harvester pub was recently sold off in Cuffley, which is a village in my constituency. Tesco believes that that will be an attractive site on which to put one of its Tesco Express stores. Residents and existing store owners in Cuffley are a little nervous about the arrival of that store, especially, they argue, because there are already 10 Tesco stores in a five-mile radius of the village. The figures that those people have produced, which I have no reason to dispute, suggest that in the EN postcode in which Cuffley is located, Tesco accounts for 50 per cent. of all grocery sales.
	When I meet local shopkeepers in my constituency and residents of Cuffley, they urge me to press for local planning law to take their concerns into account. As things stand, if the application to site a store at the former Harvester pub meets planning law requirements, there is nothing that the local council, Welwyn Hatfield borough council, can do to refuse it. I found it heartening to sit through the debate on the Sustainable Communities Bill because the Bill will allow the views of local residents to be taken into account when planning decisions are made.
	I said that I did not want to dwell on the issue of supermarkets, but I hope that the Minister will indulge me for a minute. A matter of particular concern is bookshops, especially independent bookshops. I am sure that the Minister does not have time to read  London Lite, a free paper that is handed out on the tubes and trains, but in yesterday's paper it was suggested that there will be a price war for Harry Potter books and that people will be able to buy them for between £8.87 and £8.99 from many of the larger supermarkets. That is exactly £9 below the recommended retail price. I am particularly concerned that small local bookshops cannot access the book at anything near that price.
	What happens is that small local bookshops survive off the back of, say, four blockbusters a year. That, in a sense, subsidises the specialist books that they stock. When supermarkets access books at a price that is completely beyond the reach of small book retailers, it puts the small retailers at a significant competitive disadvantage. That may push, and has pushed, many into liquidation. I hope that the Minister will take that concern on board when considering competition issues.
	Although I am a great fan of independent shops and retailers, I recognise that they have no automatic right to exist. Supermarkets undoubtedly make life difficult for independents, but that is no excuse for just shutting up shop. Independent retailers need to go head-to-head with supermarkets in different ways. They need to offer their customers a quality shopping experience. They need to have committed and trained staff on hand to ensure that people who use local shops come back to them. One great advantage that local retailers have over supermarkets is that they have customer interaction—the Americans call it "face time." Good local shops do not need loyalty cards or store cards to tell them what their customers are doing and to have a relationship with them, because they meet their customers daily. As a former marketeer, I am not convinced that small retailers are making enough of that contact to defend their position within communities.
	Small retailers need to diversify their offerings. I spoke a moment ago about some of the problems faced by independent book retailers. An excellent shop in Hoddesdon called books@hoddesdon has branched out. Every month it invites an author to visit, and such visitors have included Jeremy Paxman, who came a few months ago, and Alan Titchmarsh. The shop rents out the civic hall and sells tickets—sometimes thousands of them—to people who want to meet and listen to the authors. Of course, the authors are delighted to turn up, because they sell thousands of signed copies of their books.
	In many communities, there are good local butchers. They always struggle to compete against the supermarkets, but although I have lived in my constituency for two and a half years, I cannot ever recall receiving a card or a letter from a local butcher saying, "We're in the area and we have fantastic meats. Give us a call or come down and try some of our meat. Alternatively we will come and deliver it to you—yes, at a premium price, but it is of a quality that demands a premium price."
	A number of small pharmacists who are struggling to compete against supermarkets are examining ways of upgrading their offering. Some now have secure prescription delivery services. A number of them are building secure websites that allow people to order prescriptions remotely. Those are ways in which small retailers can secure their position in their communities, but I accept that even very good shops will occasionally fail. That is a great sadness, but it is the nature of the free market.
	We as consumers must take personal responsibility for defending and supporting our local shops. Ultimately, it is we who decide their success or failure. We often hear about rural communities losing their shops because the people buying up second homes are addicted to supermarkets. However, those are the people who whinge the loudest when the local shops close down. If they used the local shops—if they developed the discipline to use the local shops—the very things that make village life so attractive would remain in those villages.
	I, as a middle or perhaps even higher income earner, belong to one of the groups that get most agitated when things change. I am a reactionary, always manning the barricades against change. But because I am a higher income earner, I have higher rates of discretionary spend. If I want to defend my local shops in Cuffley if Tesco Express comes there, it is incumbent on me and Mrs. Walker to make sure that we set aside part of our family budget each week to spend in local shops. Signing petitions and manning the barricades is all very well, but too often people think that if they do that, they have done their bit. They have not. It is a long process. If we want to maintain vibrant high streets and vibrant local community shops everybody—Charles Walker and Mrs. Walker and all our neighbours—must get out there and spend some of their money in local shops with the people whom they claim to love and respect so much.

Malcolm Wicks: I thank the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) for introducing this important debate in an informative, authoritative and lively manner, the basic message being that his family does not just talk the talk, but walks the walk when it comes to local traders. We had noticed, as he said, that his constituency contains the headquarters of Tesco. I was wondering beforehand, although he has given us great insight into his shopping experiences, how he makes that difficult, brave but bold judgment—the tea from Tesco, the extra virgin oil from the local shop, and the books, whatever their price, from the local book trader. I found that entertaining.
	Any suggestion that I do not use  London Lite is inaccurate—I do, although I find that the London  Standard soaks up the vinegar more efficiently.
	The Government recognise the importance of small and independent shops to the community and the sense of place that they create. All of us are trying to get the balance right between the need for vibrant town and village centres, and the popularity of the large supermarkets. Local stores are essential to sustainable communities. We are aware of the concerns about the future of the independent retailer, and there has been a great deal of publicity about the dominance of large retailers, such as Tesco and Sainsbury's, and their relationship with their suppliers.
	Let me assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government are committed to promoting the vitality and viability of town and village centres, and we will be sticking to our town-centre-first policy, while providing choice, competition and innovation. In doing so, however, we must not polarise the debate—the hon. Gentleman has been at pains to say the same thing—along the lines "big brands and supermarkets are bad" and "independent and small retailers are good". Local areas can exploit links between brand retail and small independents, creating win-win outcomes for areas that are currently poorly served in terms of choice and affordability of shopping.
	Government policy for town centres seeks to support an efficient, competitive and innovative trading sector, which will enhance consumer choice and meet the needs of the entire community, not least those communities where there are many people who are among the old elderly.
	Following the publication of Kate Barker's review of land use planning and the planning White Paper, there has been a lot of publicity and concern about whether the needs test for new retail development is moving us away from the town-centre-first policy. That is not the case. I repeat that we remain absolutely committed to promoting viable town centres. The planning system has a real role in supporting thriving high streets, where small shops can succeed and provide real choice for consumers. Independent retailers add greatly to the character and vibrancy of our high streets, as the hon. Gentleman has forcefully pointed out.
	We must ensure that we continue to have tough tests for new development that help us to protect and enhance our town and city centres as the bustling hearts of every community. We will require better assessment of how new developments will affect town centres, including the impact on high streets and local shops. We want to work with the industry and stakeholders to develop the best and most robust methodology for assessing the impact of new development proposals on our town centres. The Department for Communities and Local Government will consult on proposals over the summer.
	Clearly though, local authorities will need to take account of regeneration, economic growth, employment and social inclusion when preparing their plans and determining applications. Those factors can be given significant weight in deciding whether to give planning permission for development. We will also need to consider how the planning system can best address competition and consumer choice issues.
	Of course, the planning system is only one part of the story in encouraging local regeneration. Local traders can use innovative ways to increase their trade and catalyse local renaissance. I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman's argument that it is puzzling that local retailers do not do more to publicise the importance of their shops. Budgens is a symbol group of shops, where the shops themselves are independently owned. Budgens proprietors actively encourage the shop owners to innovate in their use of space and product lines and in the services that they offer to customers in order to safeguard or expand their share of the local market.
	Retail innovation is also being looked at more generally through the Government's retail innovation group and its sub-groups, on which small retailers are represented. Through the group, innovation and technology is being explored as a way of harnessing improved productivity in the sector. Work includes gathering and disseminating case studies on how retailers have used innovation to trade advantage.
	We have also introduced measures to benefit local shops through a new stronger code of practice making leasing shops and offices more user-friendly for small businesses. The new code will mean that small businesses get a step-by-step occupier's guide to contract negotiations, which will help tenants to avoid the pitfalls of bad contracts.
	The Government's local enterprise growth initiative benefits local traders, too. It assists enterprise growth and improved business support, particularly in deprived areas and communities. As part of this, it can support activity to boost the viability and impact of small independent retailers. For example, in County Durham specialist retail advice is being provided to help local traders around a street market to build their businesses. Local authorities too have measures that they can use to encourage local shops. For instance, the business improvement districts initiative provides a mechanism for local authorities and local businesses to engage in additional services or projects to improve their town centres, all of which will benefit local traders.
	Of course, many local traders are, almost by definition, small businesses, which are a vital element of the economy. Indeed, productivity growth in small and medium-sized retail businesses has outstripped that in large businesses. Moreover, small retailers with 10 to 49 employees have had such high levels of productivity growth that their gross value added per worker is now 14 per cent. higher than that of large retail businesses. I must admit that I was surprised when I read that figure, and I was rather encouraged by it, as the hon. Gentleman will be. Because of their importance to the economy, the Government have undertaken a range of initiatives to encourage the development and growth of small businesses, and small retailers can benefit from all those initiatives.
	Let me say something about regulation. The Government are placing importance on creating the right environment for small businesses. Better regulation is key. While I recognise that regulation continues to be a topic of real interest amongst the SME community—rightly so—we should not lose sight of our success in this area. I am pleased to say that the proportion of SMEs citing regulation as the main barrier to success has fallen from 21 per cent. in 2002 to 14 per cent. in 2005, but we need to work harder on that agenda. Despite that excellent achievement, we remain committed to further reform to minimise regulatory burdens.
	The Government are committed to "think small first" in developing new policies for business, and we have a clear plan to drive this programme forward. For example, we have made it clear that better regulation is an absolute priority. We have been the first Government to measure and quantify the administrative burden of regulation on business. We have published the results and committed to seek a 25 per cent. reduction by 2010. No other Government have done that. We have also ensured that there are just two annual commencement dates for new legislation to make it easier for businesses to keep track of incoming regulation. We are working closely with the Better Regulation Executive on the simplification agenda. With the introduction of the local better regulation offices, and through our work on the retail enforcement pilot, we are working to reduce the burden of inspection and compliance on small retailers.
	Our achievements in strengthening SMEs and entrepreneurial activity are not just down to the regulatory environment: promotion of entrepreneurship is also critical. I will cite just a few examples of what the Government are doing. Driven forward by the Small Business Service, the improvements in the delivery of services under the Business Link brand continue to bear fruit following the transition from national to regional management. Our ongoing work to simplify the range of publicly funded business support schemes from 3,000—I must admit that that is a great deal—to 100 is making them easier to access, reducing confusion for business customers, making them more efficient to administer, thereby saving taxpayers' money, and ensuring that they have a measurable impact on business and on the economy.
	In welcoming the hon. Gentleman's debate, let me say that through the measures that I have outlined, and others that I do not have time to discuss, we are promoting enterprise and creating an environment where small businesses, including the local traders whom he emphasised, can flourish. A thriving small business community, be it in retail or other sectors, provides the means to shift people and activity quickly into our economy. It is also the way in which to promote the smaller-scale sustainable communities in our town centres and village centres that the hon. Gentleman and all of us in the House wish to promote.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to Three o'clock.